


Time and Patience

by StarDrought



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Meteorstuck, Relationship Issues, Verbal Confrontation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 06:26:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7607323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarDrought/pseuds/StarDrought
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>i promise in this fic there is NO tropes of red eyes, red blood, overly confident dave, or ridiculous pet names. early relationship davekat!<br/>UPDATE: by popular demand, this WILL be getting a second part!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time and Patience

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this on and off for three months! it's a labor of love that's been revised three times since the original. short but good? there might be another part depending on the demand. very quick mention, i guess you could say that this fic is somewhat focused on internal feelings. really, please don't skip over. that's all, thank you for giving this a chance! P.S. song recommendation for this is do i wanna know? by the arctic monkeys
> 
> AN: WOAH!! a hundred hits in a day?! and all this positive feedback?? you're gonna make me cry, guys... this is really great! my tumblr is comet-kind, where i make bad art. thank you again! please keep up the feedback? it's very encouraging!

     When you wake up, your eyes feel like they’re sealed shut. Your stomach feels like a pile of stones have been ungraciously poured in to you, searing and burning and making you want to vomit. You’re laying alone on a poorly constructed ‘mattress’ (it’s even close to a recuperacoon, but all times you’ve tried to recreate it went wrong) and you’re so anxiety ridden you’re about to burst. Which, granted, seems to be a common occurrence, but this feels so much _worse_ in every way because there’s nothing else to _do_.

     Dave has been missing for three days, seventy-two hours without talking to you, without responding to a single message, you’ve even gone searching for him with nothing. Just gone, no reason. Not even a single word to anybody else! He wouldn’t ditch you, he even made _plans_ with you. There shouldn’t be a problem on your end! You said goodnight after watching movies, you headed back to your rooms, and you pretended to sleep.

     You probably should’ve seen this coming. He _had_ been acting weird the days leading up to his disappearance, what are you thinking? When you went to watch the movie, he sat with his arms crossed the entire time, only making a few dead panned comments about human Dane Cook and his acting. You could see him unclenching and clenching the fabric of his sleeves, tapping his foot. You were sitting right next to each other, and you’ve known him long enough that trying to loosen him up took some caution. You scooched over so you were just touching sides and knocked his knee with yours. Even with something like that, he jumped. It made you feel this weird distance you didn’t have the weeks before.

    You wonder if all of this is just you being overbearing. Maybe he was fed up. Maybe it was just you all together. Maybe he was pretending to like you all this time, maybe it was a joke of some sort.

     No no _no_ , god, you’re so stupid, this isn’t the time for that! You could be going and looking for him, your self-hatred could wait! You vaguely remember waddling back to your room in pure exhaustion last night. When nobody had even caught sight of him either, you just collapsed. Now, you’re itching to look around again, to do something. It’s not like you’ve had much to do when all the future planning was in other hands – you might as well do something useful.

     You stand up, stretch for a few seconds, and march outside your door. Your door slides open, and you wipe your eyes to try and wake up your vision. When you’re half way down the hallway, your door closes loudly, and it's echo has no problem bouncing around the hallway. It makes you jump, and you start walking a little faster. Your anxiety is still boiling, still making you feel sick, but you keep walking and take a turn towards Dave’s room.

     You hit the button on Dave’s door, and it opens to completely dark room. Your bloodpusher thumps harder, and you feel like it’s ringing in your ears. “Dave?” you call unsurely. There’s no response.  The room is sparsely decorated, because you were supposed to move your rooms closer together, and most of his stuff had been captchalouged. His bed is still pushed up against the corner, a blanket is still messily hanging thrown over it, and his pillow is still on the floor. There are a few cans that he had been saving for Can Town that are neatly stacked in the corner in to the shape of a dick. There’s a table with his mixing equipment and his earbuds, too, but it hasn’t moved since you two used it last. You take a look around, but it’s so undisturbed, it’s clear he hasn’t been here since he’s gone missing. You walk out with a feeling of disappointment.

     The next closest thing is the common room. You keep it brisk, you ignore the loud buzzing of the florescent lights overhead, and try to focus on being alert. You turn the corner and see the Mayor, practically skipping down the hallway, a can in both tiny hands. Out of everything, at least he’s still cheery.

     He runs over to you when he sees you sets down a can to tug at your pants. “What’s up?” You ask, crouching down to his level. He holds up his cans again and puts them on top of each other, pointing at you.

     “I know, I know, I’m sorry we haven’t been around,” you say honestly. You’re about to say something when he’s trying to ask you another question. He holds up three fingers, points to you, points to himself, and holds up one finger. “I have no idea! I’ve been looking for him for the past couple of days and haven’t seen him at all. Not even a message or anything,” you answer with a sigh. “I’m looking for Dave right now,” you promise him. “We’ll come by once I find him, okay?” He does a tiny jump of joy and gives you a hug. You give him a little squeeze in return, he picks up his cans, and runs in the direction of Can Town.

     You stand back up and feel a little bit better. How could you not? The Mayor always makes you feel a little bit better with such a pep in his step. You continue forward, and take a turn in to the common room. “Hello?” you call out. Again, nothing, so you make your way over to the coffee machine to get a boost.

     The machine makes a sound as if it was draining, and spits out some coffee. It eventually thins out in to a steady stream, filling up the cup slowly. You lean on the counter, and by the emptiness of the room, you’re guessing it’s early morning. It’s just the quiet and slow splashing of the coffee against the mug, your own breathing, and the general, low, humming that is always present in the room. You put both elbows on the counter and hang your head, massaging your temples. This is such a mess. You wish you knew what was going on, you wish the stretching and pulling of your insides would stop, you wish you could just close your eyes it’s just a bad dream.

     You stand back up and rub your eyes. The coffee machine stops, and you pick up the mug. You blow off and take a sip of the bitter shit. It sends a shiver down your spine, but you’re ready to get moving. You have to at least try, or you’re going to explode on the next thing you see.

     You see someone in your peripheral vision, and you twitch a little bit.

     Dave comes around the corner and in to the room with those fucking _douchey_ glasses, and he’s strutting in like he hadn’t been avoiding everybody for over three days. He’s walking in like he’s just woken up, came from his block, and had been looking for you. He’s coming in the room like he was ready to come finish the novel you were supposed to wrap up three days ago.

     “Hey Karkat,” he says from across the room. You turn around to see him standing by the couch, hands in his pockets. You deliberately set the coffee on the counter with a soft _clack_ and walk over to him. You stop when there are a few feet between you.

     “Where the _fuck_ ,” you begin quietly, “have you _been_?!” You yell furiously. He grimaces.

     “I’ve been around, just chilling. You know it’s what I do best, just hanging around. The reason it’s always so cold on this goddamn rock? It’s coming straight from me, I’m the open freezer that is providing the sweet chilled relief on a hot day. Call me something like, a million AC units out on mother fucking Venus.”

     You raise an eyebrow and your shoulders sag a little in disbelief. Is he hearing what’s coming out of his mouth? “What am _I_ talking about? Just _chilling_? You’ve been gone for three fucking days, not a message, not a note saying ‘hey Karkat I’m gonna go fuck off for a while, be back’, nothing! Everyone has been worried sick! _I’ve_ been worried sick! I’ve been searching for days and the first thing you come back and say to me is that it was _nothing?_ Let me tell you that our last movie night sure didn’t feel like there was nothing wrong, that you poofing in to thin air sure didn’t feel like you were ‘hanging around’!” You turn around and throw your hands in to the air, walking a few steps away. “Once again we see Karkat Vantas, putting up with bullshit right down from Ass Avenue! Watch in wonder as he willingly puts himself in a shit storm of anxiety and frustration, only to feel awash with guilt and fear later! The audience claps politely, feeling bad for the troll, only for them to disappear as soon as he turns around!”

     There’s a moment of thick and stiff silence. “It’s… complicated,” he sighs. You turn back around to watch him. It's a small break through, but it's practically nothing in the long run. He looks at the ceiling and starts chewing on the inside of his cheek. He taps his foot once or twice and bounces back on his heels, like he’s debating something. 

     You feel a little pinch in your bloodpusher. “How am I supposed to know what you’re talking about if you won’t tell me?” You take a deep breath, trying to stay a little more level headed. “I want to _help_ you; it’s what we’re supposed to _do._ ”

     He looks at his feet. You know he’s avoiding looking at you, which is annoying. You’re so tired of not communicating, and he’s doing it again. You know him. You know he’s just trying to brush it off, he’s trying to get away from it.

     “Normally moirails, or... whatever we are in human terms, should be there for each other. In some unconventional way, maybe we are. I guess if you count physical acts of comfort, there sure are a few points in that category. But I want you to talk to me, because I don’t always understand what’s going on in your head.” You’re trying to keep it cool, but you’ve got so much bottled up that you want to say.

     He continues to look at the ground. “You didn’t even have this dumb ass shit on Alternia. This is just a fucking mess, it’s so fucked up.” He trails off, muttering something you can’t hear.

     “How am I supposed to know what that even _means?!”_ You shout. He finally looks up from the ground. “You give me these vague bullshit clues underneath this weird façade you’ve got, and I don’t know how to crack it!”

     He just stares at you with a neutral expression. This is _exactly_ what you’re talking about! He just stops everything when you’re trying to talk to him. So you stomp right in front of him and rip his glasses off, tossing them behind you. They rattle as they hit the ground, and not even his lightning reflexes are fast enough this time. He stares wide eyed at you, still not speaking.

     “Whenever I bring up anything about you, or me, or us, you refuse to talk!” You walk forward a step and he matches you by stepping back. “Lately, you’ve been shutting me out, and I don’t know why! I’m trying so fucking hard right now, Dave! I’m trying real hard to be a good _something_ , I’m trying to be there for when you need a distraction just as much as I do.” You start choking up, and there are pinkish tears beginning to clog up your vision, but you try working around them. “But you know what’s really hard? Not getting to talk about _anything_ , because forgive me if I need to talk through something to feel better.” You continue walking forward, and he continues walking back. “Oh and there’s just _so much_ you _never want to mention again._ Don’t bring up any of the times where you came to my room sobbing, or any time where we were cuddling, or hell, when we were  _making out_.” You back him up against the counter, and he elbows the coffee, spilling it over the surface and on the floor. You grab him by the shirt.

     “I don’t know what any of these means! I _want_ to! I want to fucking know, but for me? It feels like a big block sitting in front of me, and I’ve got no way around. Why do you have to be silent about the obvious trunk beast in the room? You dance circles around, poking at it with a stick but looking away like you didn’t!” Your mouth twitches upward to reveal some teeth involuntarily, but you blink and the tears spill over your cheeks. “Why do you avoid just _speaking_ about things? I want to talk about what happened during our session, I want to talk about the goddamn nightmares, but you don’t, so it just feels like a heavy weight I’ve been dragging around! And I know, I _know_ they affect you too, because we’re one in the same, and I’ve _seen it_. Why do you have to hide it? Why won’t you just – fucking – _talk to me?”_

     His knuckles are white from gripping the counter behind him, and you’re out of breath, panting. The almost-silence returns except for the faint, unwavering, low buzzing. He gulps, the sound magnified. His pupils are blown up, and he draws in quick breaths through his nose. His forehead is glistening with sweat.

     You think if you had something more significant to fight over in this exact moment, you’d continue. If in another timeline, someone or something had given you an extra reason to keep tearing him apart verbally, you would. But there isn’t. You blink a few times and look down. Your claws have torn through his shirt, right above his skin – when did they get so sharp?

     What are you doing? You’re screaming right in Dave’s face for… for something you didn’t need to get angry over. You release his shirt and look back up at him.

     “Fuck, fuck, fuck fuck fuck,” you whisper to yourself. “Dave, I’m –” you go to touch his arm, because you think that’s a pretty harmless place at this exact moment. Instead, he snaps it over his chest, scrunches up his eyes, and lets out this tiny _whimper_. It’s the worst sound you’ve ever heard in your life. Your bloodpusher constricts, and the stones in your stomach are back. You’ve never hated yourself more than in this exact moment because _you did this to him_.

     You start backing away slowly. “Dave, I’m so sorry, I’m so fucking sorry, I’m a bulgemuncher, I’m an asshole, I’m so sorry.” You hesitate, because you wanted to go apologize to him, or maybe throw yourself off the roof, or do something to show him you’re so sorry, you’re so sorry, you would do _anything_ to make it up to him. But you know that won’t do a thing right now. Instead, you run to the transportalizer to get as far away from this as possible. You hear a strained sob before you leave the room.

 


End file.
